2. Jake was emasculated by the war. He lacks the ability to be intimate with any woman, including Lady Brett whom he loves. He is insecure with his manhood, feeling that it was stripped from him, making him undesirable. …show more content…
Lady Brett has an affinity for men that she can manipulate who have less power for her. During the war, she lost her lover and was permanently broken, developing a need to be with men that she can fix. She is attracted to Jake because of his feebleness and to Romero because he was much younger than her. She truly loves Jake but she is not willing to give up her womanhood for him. She is not an example of what women should aspire to be, as she is broken and finds solace in empty love affairs. She has the right to take advantage of her male friends because she funnels her pain and suffering into sexual conquests and prides herself on the destruction she has the ability to leave in her wake and they continue to lust after her.
9. In the scene where Romero is bull fighting, Hemingway uses basic language with a matter-of-fact tone but he describes every action of the bullfighter and the steer. In the rest of the novel he only describes surface level events leaving the reader to imply underlying emotions and attitudes between characters. The bull fighting does not pertain to the central plot of the expatriates but it adds to their ideal of covering their unhappiness and emptiness with entertainment and lavish lifestyles. It also secures the idea of Jake being